


no grave (can hold my body down)

by harrietscats



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Anthropology, Archaeology, Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, Canon Compliant, Crime Fighting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Jewish Character, Medical Jargon, Medical Procedures, Mystery, Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Philosophy, Robot/Human Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 19:28:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20158852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harrietscats/pseuds/harrietscats
Summary: "Thinking. Feeling. Acting. Characteristics that some old white men decided human nature encompassed and only we lucky humans, mind you, had the pleasure of its blessing. But what of corvids, who mourn with each other when one of their murder has died? Or an entire pod of orcas bearing the burden of a dead calf, showing solidarity with the grieving mother in her time of need?""If I haven't convinced you yet, let me tell you the story of a young neanderthal man. He was between the ages of 25 and 40 by the time he passed. Detailed pathologies spelled out crippling injuries, including a degenerative disease of the spine and shoulders. His condition would have sapped his strength over the final 12 months of life, caused him immeasurable pain, and severely restricted his ability to contribute to the group.""The social darwinists will tell you that this was silly. That he was a drain on resources, and should have died. Instead, archaeologists found him buried with care, with one foot forward so he could take his first steps into his next life. Why? Our Compassion. So why should we spare androids the same?"(Excerpt from Dr. Rose Ainsley's TED Talk: Did Neanderthals Give Us Compassion?)





	no grave (can hold my body down)

[October 9th]

[AM 1:01:06]

[Mount Sinai St. Camillus Hospital]

The emergency department of Mount Sinai St. Camillus was quiet. It was not as well known as Henry Ford, or as publicly funded as the state hospitals closer to the city center, but it was a modest hospital that once served the Motor City’s Jewish community. Now, the secular hospital had found itself at the forefront of developing medicine. An employee shakeup during the first quarter of 2029 had ushered in a new era of palliative care, intent on putting the humanity back in nursing. Hard work and perseverance paid off, and St. Camillus once again found itself on the 2037-38 United States Best Hospitals Honor Roll for the fourth year running. 

Visitors from other hospitals—bigger, better funded, both domestic and abroad—were always at a loss when seeing St. Camillus up close. A Cotswold-style mansion in the heart of Detroit, attached to the hospital proper in a fashion that invoked the architecture of The London Clinic. It was a small facility for such an urban location, housing just twenty beds in its emergency department, and 256 beds overall. St. Camillus was state of the art, performed life saving surgeries straight from the annals of science fiction, and heralded a compliment of human staff at the top of their field just crazy enough to do it all.

And saved lives they did. 

The teaching hospital also had the pleasure of boasting a state of the art level one trauma center (opened just six months before), with the first android chief attending ever appointed to a public or private hospital. It made the news circuits for months, had residents clamoring to be placed in disciplines they never considered in their wildest dreams because it was _St. Camillus. _Despite rising segregation laws, and violence against androids and those called "neo-abolitionists", medicine had escaped relatively unscathed. An android attending the most technologically advanced surgical centers in the world? It was a political message even the most politically blind could see.

Or there would have been one, had CyberLife signed off on the poor MD900 _ before _ St. Camillus officially opened its trauma center. As a result, Dr. Édouard Chevin—a winemaker who (in his own words) just happened to be artful with a scalpel—found himself at the tail end of a twenty four hour shift, blanket tucked round his legs and smoking in the ambulance bay. 

Chevin was eight months into his retirement, as he liked to joke. His office collected platitude filled cards ranging from generic _ Sorry to see you go, _ to sappy _ The French wine country may have your heart now, but you’ll always be with us. _ It wasn’t his fault, he argued lamely. His brother had fallen ill, and left the 800 or so year legacy (or, if you were Édouard’s _ pére, _correct bourgeois businessmen with a Picard accent and said that the winery had been in existence at the birth of Robert the Pious) of Château de Chevin in jeopardy. So Édouard—the doting brother he was—had planned on retiring to his many great-grandfather's winery in Alsace, finally throwing the fight against the slow march of progress, letting it overtake him and push him into gentle obsolescence. 

But the hospital board kept asking for “A few more weeks,” as they argued with CyberLife’s many healthcare liaisons, and France was unseasonably cold this time of year.

He loathed the cold.

(The irony of sitting in a cold ambulance loading bay was not lost on him.)

Chevin heard the door open behind him. If he were younger, he would have put out his cigarette in shame. But he was seventy-five, and the board needed him more than Chevin needed them. But the footsteps did not belong to anyone on the hospital board (not that they would be caught dead standing in an ambulance bay at one in the morning). They were patient. Unhurried. Chevin sighed out a curse in his native French and dragged on the menthol cigarette, ignoring the sign posted beside him. 

HOSPITAL. NO SMOKING WITHIN TWENTY FEET. MAXIMUM FINE OF $2,500

“Those will kill you, you know,” said his cheeky trauma resident. Dr. Jordan Montgomery was a slight thing of twenty-five, blonde and grey eyed. The child of the Canadian ambassador, she had her choice of career, and decided to disappoint both parents by becoming a trauma surgeon. Her dedication, wit, and ability to marshal a chaotic trauma center was what made him approve her residency while he had actively been emailing HR about his pension. 

Chevin looked at Montgomery, who winked and removed one of the newer models of e-cigs from her white coat. Standing beside him, she cleverly obstructed the sign warning them not to smoke.

She always was deviously clever. Not that he would ever let her know that. 

“You’re one to talk, _ petite merde,_” said Chevin, resting both elbows on his knees and staring up at the overcast sky. It was a cold October, as unseasonable as his beautiful Alsace. Snow had fallen in massive drifts during the day, bloated their emergency room with broken ankles and sprains and bruises that could have been handled by a homemade ice pack. “All quiet?”

“Last discharge went through thirty minutes ago,” Montgomery said, tucking one hand into her pocket and casting an eye upward at the gathering storm clouds. “Mr. Deignan just left with his daughter. Lovely woman. Only asked to see you once.”

Chevin sighed, rubbed his lined forehead with his thumb. 

“Quiet, then?” he remarked. 

“Quiet enough for you to go over REBOA with me.”

Chevin narrowed a glare at Montgomery. 

“If you have problems recalling the insertion of the resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta to temporize life-threatening hemorrhage, I’m dismissing you.”

Montgomery laughed. 

“Just testing you, _ vieillard_. According to my girlfriend, I recite the protocol in my sleep.”

The old trauma surgeon rolled his eyes and dragged on his cigarette. Tried not to shiver. The cold was starting to settle in his bones. 

“Your accent is horrible,” commented Chevin unkindly. “If I did not know you, I would never understand you.”

“And you’re losing yours,” Montgomery retorted. “_D'ailleurs, mon québécoise est parfait_.”

He jerked a thumb at the impertinent woman. 

“_You _ don’t even speak real French. I should make you lance ulcers for the nurses for the rest of the week for that comment.”

Montgomery went to reply, a smart retort on her tongue, when her watch began to trill. If Chevin were not a trauma surgeon, he would have been blissfully ignorant to the alarm that began to blare from his own wrist. He let out a quiet “_Merde,_” and dragged on his cigarette. Most ambulances were routed to the bigger hospitals this time of night. 

“Another broken leg?” Chevin inquired, unbothered by the beeping at his wrist. He silenced it with a swipe of his finger and went back to his cigarette. 

Montgomery—always quick with a response—was uncharacteristically quiet. That had Chevin turning to face her. Her brows were furrowed and her eyes darted from side to side as she read the translated text between the city’s flying squad and their dispatch team. 

Chevin brought the conversation up on his own watch and unfolded the arms of his reading glasses single handedly, cigarette dangling from his bottom lip. 

“Not a broken leg, I take it,” he quipped as he slid his glasses into place. 

“No, Doctor,” said Montgomery. 

Chevin looked up at Montgomery, eyebrows drawing together in worry. Montgomery’s favored term of address for the grizzled trauma surgeon who had served in refugee camps during the US-Mexico Border Crisis (the same place he would lose the use of his legs, but not his career) and marshalled calm and serenity in chaos was _ vieillard_. Old man. He didn’t need to read the dispatch to know that it was serious. 

In the eighteen months he had been working with Montgomery, she only referred to him as “Doctor” once. 

“Go page Emily and have her kit out theater one,” Chevin said, flicking his cigarette butt into a snow drift, leaving his private recollection of Alsace behind for trauma protocol. “Who’s the anesthetist on call?”

“Robin,” Montgomery shot over her shoulder. Her e-cig was packed away; she was busy trying to tie her hair into a low bun and page their OR nurse and anesthetist at the same time. “According to the reporting paramedic, an unidentified woman appearing in her early to mid twenties presented with a penetrating wound to the upper left quadrant. Additional wounds catalogued by MC500 “Paul” are listed by severity.” She handed him a portable tablet with the itemized list. 

Morbidly, it reminded him of the grocery shopping he still needed to do. 

“Car crash?” Chevin inquired. 

“They don’t know,” Montgomery said. “They found her at that old synagogue in Fraser. They thought she was a DOA.” 

Chevin perused the information on the tablet, face stony and expressionless. 

“_Elle veut vivre, petite merde._”

“I’m paging neurology as well to see who they can send down to us,” said Montgomery, her eyes soft. His words had not gone unnoticed. “The bank is sending up bags of plasma and colloid for standard traumatic infusion protocol to trauma one.”

Chevin took the information in stride, expertly wheeling himself in front of Montgomery. At the nurse’s station, he paused. 

“Tell the scheduler that a rotation change is needed,” he said. “Is Emily on her way down?”

“Already here!” chirped the trauma nurse in question. She already wore her black scrubs, bustled by with a wave in either doctor’s direction. “Mason is right behind me. He’s waking the student nurse we have shadowing us.”

Chevin scoffed. Montgomery looked at the tablet and held up ten fingers. 

“Right!” Chevin clapped his hands together. “I need suite one kitted out in five minutes. Dr. Montgomery, Nurse Madchen, and myself will wait for the paramedics. Scrub in, and have your student nurse start my trauma playlist.” He sighed, gestured for a tablet from Nurse Madchen. “Something tells me we’ll need it.”

Madchen nodded, followed Emily (and Mason, who was hustling a student nurse of about twenty and appeared as if she were still asleep) towards trauma suite one. Montgomery regarded her watch and held up five fingers. 

“Did the paramedics score her?” Chevin asked. He scrolled through the dialogue with a finger. Kept the quiet litany of curses to himself. _ Tension pneumothorax resulting from flail chest. Hemodynamically unstable. Intubated. Hypothermic. _

_ Elle se bat pour la vie. _

“Priority Cat 1. She scored a 2.8.” Montgomery sounded as surprised as Chevin looked. “Paramedics estimate she was without oxygen for two and a half minutes.” At his puzzled expression, she clarified: “Suspected MI as a result of hemorrhagic shock.”

_ Merde_. 

“I’m going to scrub in now so we can open as soon as she’s on the table,” Chevin decided, handing the tablet back to Montgomery and hurrying towards the trauma suite. “Assess our Jeanne Dupont as soon as the ambulance is in the bay, and page whomever she needs. I’ll expect you scrubbed in and ready to open in less than ten minutes.”

Montgomery nodded, hurried back towards the cold. Chevin sighed resignedly and wheeled himself towards the scrub room. 

The act of scrubbing in was almost meditative. Chevin had overseen more surgeries than he could count, prided himself on being ready to operate in under ten minutes (six in an emergency). He changed into his OR scrubs methodically. Covered his grey hair with a skullcap. Made the painful transition to the sterile, AI-assisted leg braces that allowed him to stand and operate for supernaturally long periods of time. Finally, he washed his hands to the faint tune of _ Summertime Magic _drifting through the doors to trauma suite one. It was something he could do in his sleep, something he unconsciously did at home (much to the chagrin of his husband). It helped him center himself as he counted to 300 in French.

_ Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf... _

Entering the suite back-first, arms cradled to his chest and bent at the elbow, Chevin nodded to Dr. Robin Langbroek as a scrub tech by the name of Raul helped him into his gown and gloves. Emily stood by the instrument tray, prepared for first orders. Hovering over the bed was a fantastic creature of chrome and sterile plastic, a capable machine able to perform the duties of a second surgeon. 

Chevin called it _ le fléau_. The nuisance. 

“Open fracture?” Langbroek asked, voice a pleasant combination of sleepy and aware. 

“If they put us in trauma one for an open fracture I’ll be very annoyed,” quipped Mason. 

“It’s a Cat 1,” snapped Chevin. “How much colloid and plasma did the bank deliver?”

It was not the doctors, nor the nurses who answered. Instead, the little student nurse who sat on a rolling chair, laptop poised precariously on a sterile instrument table, replied. 

“Four liters of frozen plasma,” she rattled off. “Six of universal. Four liters of Ringer’s lactate and four liters of Voluven are in reserve, per resuscitation protocol.”

“Infusion protocol?”

Like music, the student nurse replied:

“Four units of FFP per six units of packed blood. Plasma to be infused slowly to avoid hypocalcemia.”

Chevin nodded. 

“Excellent…”

“Victoria,” the student replied. 

“Playlist queued?” he asked her. 

“Yes, Doctor.”

There was little else to do but wait for their guest. 

“We know this dance,” he said. Perhaps he was imagining it, but he could swear the emergency department was growing bloated with commotion. Perhaps he heard sirens over Childish Gambino. Perhaps he did not. “What’s our number one rule?”

“Make sure our guests go home,” his team echoed. 

“_Excellent!_” He could hear a gurney. Montgomery shouting orders. Disappearing into the scrub room. “_Faisons de la magie, mon amis. _We have a guest to greet.”

Their on call neurologist and a general surgery resident guided the gurney bearing their Jane Doe. The resident was dutifully depressing an ambu bag attached to the endotracheal tube slotted into her throat, while the neurologist (who was obviously dredging their trauma rotations from the depths of their memory) pressed packed gauze against a sluggishly bleeding wound right below her left breast. 

“Unidentified female in her early to mid twenties,” reported Montgomery as she strode in behind the gurney, arms extended for Raul to assist her into her gown. “Recovered from Mishkan Yisroel Synagogue. Presented as a DOA until paramedics on scene were able to record systolic pressure. Grade IV splenic injury, estimated 40% loss of total blood volume. CT scan and ultrasound showed estimated 30 HU of extravasated blood in the abdominal cavity, abnormal presentation of the right kidney, and impacted liver.”

“Abnormal?” interrupted Chevin. He stood beside the gurney, looked down at the paper white face hiding behind a wash of bruises and dried blood. She looked younger than the estimate the paramedics gave, lifeless. A liberal sprinkling of freckles dotted the bridge of her nose and the apples of her cheeks. Nurse Madchen unhooked the bag from the endotracheal tube and hooked it to the ventilator.

“It’s missing,” said their neurologist. “Or hiding behind the hepatic bleed.” They strode to the head of the gurney, assisted the nurses in transferring Jane Doe onto the table. The paramedics had already cut her out of her clothes; Robin went to work inserting a line into the crook of her elbow. “What’s concerning me is the skull fracture.” 

A swipe of the hand. On _ le fléau _was a transparent screen. Without being asked, Emily placed Chevin’s glasses on his face, allowing him to squint at the CT of the young woman’s head. Plain as day was the hairline fracture at the base of her skull, and the small pool of blood behind her left ear.

“Chidi, get on it,” said Chevin. Emily—regloved and sterile—handed him a scalpel as Mason swabbed the entirety of her abdomen with betadine. “Prepare—”

“—for a burr-hole craniotomy,” answered Dr. Maina. “Elisabeth, please place Miss Doe’s head in position and prepare the area.”

Dr. Quadir was at Jane Doe’s head in an instant, preparing the prerequisite five centimeter area behind the girl’s ear.

“Excellent,” said Chevin to himself. The CT scan had not done the damage to her abdomen any justice. The spleen was barely salvageable; _ le fléau _had already taken a biopsy from her remaining kidney and packaged it for scaffolding and growth. Aloud, he said: “Did anyone send her details to the local precinct?”

“Paramedics sent them to the Twelfth,” said Montgomery, ultrasound probe in hand. “Start a line of colloids for transfusion. I’m queuing up _ le fléau _ to begin draining the abdominal cavity.”

Chevin peeled back a layer of subcutaneous fat. Found a damaged abdominal aorta, severed renal veins. No right kidney.

_ C’est quoi ce bordel? _

“Victoria, queue up “Level One”. And let me know as soon as the police can identify her.” He pressed into her. Queued _le_ _fléau_ for emergency resuscitation. “We may need to identify next of kin sooner rather than later.”

_ Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf... _

𐍈 𐍈 𐍈 

[October 9th]

[AM 1:22:13]

[Detroit City Police Department]

[Central Station]

_ Click. _

A barely perceptible grunt.

_ Click. _

Blood pressure raised to 144/90.

_ Click. _

“I swear to fuckin’ god, if you click that pen _ one more time. _..” spat Lieutenant Hank Anderson, slamming his hands down on his desk hard enough to rattle his photo of Sumo, “I’m gonna stick it so far up your ass you’ll be able to taste the ink.”

RK800—designated Connor, serial number 313 - 248 - 317 by CyberLife’s quality control department—looked like the picture of innocence as he stared across his desk at his unwilling partner. The offending instrument rested in his left hand, thumb depressing the nib. Brown eyes curious, expression open, Connor let his finger lift from the depressor with another light _ click. _

Hank grumbled his discontent, and leaned back deeply into his desk chair. With a sigh, he placed one booted foot carelessly atop his desk, and crossed the other over it so he could further relax. With a sniff, Hank reached for his fifth lukewarm mug (THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!) of coffee, and cradled it in both hands. He looked more like a sulking teenager than grizzled detective as he watched an early 2000s film on his desktop to occupy his time. 

“He dies at the end,” said Connor helpfully. 

“No shit, Sherlock,” Hank bit out.

“You watched that already.” _ Released 2009, nominated for sixteen awards, won three. _“I liked it.”

“Fuck what you like. It’s your fault we’re on the graveyard shift anyway.”

Technically speaking, it was Hank’s fault both he and Connor were the late night detectives on call. Hank had neglected to properly check out the archived file on the PL600 Connor had shot on August 15. Connor, however, had wanted to review the reporting officer’s case file (instead of his own, undoubtedly more accurate one), and since Connor did not have access to the archives yet…

/ / SOFTWARE INSTABILITY / /

Connor blinked. The LED at his temple turned a pensive yellow. Hank looked at him through squinted eyes over the rim of his mug. 

“You ticking all the boxes over there, asshole?” Hank asked. If Connor didn’t know any better, he would have said Hank was concerned. 

“A missing persons case was filed earlier today,” Connor said, avoiding the question. With a touch of his finger, Hank’s movie paused (“I was watching that, asshole!”) and replaced itself with a standard format missing persons report (filed by PM700 “Agnes” at 21:46).

“We aren’t on missing persons.” Hank, aggravated, transferred the file to Officer Powell in Missing Persons and queued his movie back up, daring Connor to interrupt his midnight movie marathon again. “Go do something useful. Like 3D chess.”

Not to be dissuaded, Connor resent the missing person’s report. This time, he made sure to attach the photo provided.

Connor watched Hank’s eyes soften. Watched him sit straighter in his chair. Lower his legs so his feet were on the ground. The mug hit the desk with an audible _ clink. _The reaction was not unfamiliar to Connor; when he idly opened the report exactly seventeen minutes, forty-four seconds ago, he found himself captivated almost,

/ / SOFTWARE INSTABILITY / /

painting the upper rim of his right eye, where only he could see.

He would need to see Amanda before the night was through. 

(What if Dr. Ainsley's case was linked to the sudden onset of deviance in the android population? He was only doing as he had been programmed, after all.)

The photo was faculty professional, taken of a smiling young woman of twenty-five. She looked young, youth exacerbated by the slight gap in her front teeth and the affectionate freckling of her skin. Loose, curly red hair and brown eyes reminded him of someone, made him investigate social media for a digital fingerprint. 

And her prints were global, depressions of academia and adventure and something far deeper.

“Dr. Roselyn Ainsley,” Connor said. “Associate Chairperson of Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, and Norse Archaeology and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. She was reported missing by her colleague.”

“Dr. Chana Ayodele,” read Hank. There was an air of familiarity to his eyes. “Professor of Sub-Saharan Archaeology, Assyriology, and Muslim Studies.”

Connor looked up from the sprawling information on Dr. Roselyn Ainsley on his desktop to take in Hank.

“You sound like you’re familiar with their work.”

Hank scratched at his stubble, squinted at the photo of Dr. Ainsley. Tried to jog his memory. 

“Think she and Dr. Ayodele presented a TED Talk,” he mused. “Something about a queen.”

Connor blinked. 

“_What_.”

“Nothing,” said Connor with the barest hint of a smile. “I didn’t think you were the type who watched TED Talks.”

Offended, Hank pointed accusingly at the upstart android. “Can’t a guy get some fuckin’ culture without gettin’ judged? Fucking _hell_.”

Connor held up his hands in a placating fashion. Hank muttered something unkind and scrolled past the smiling photo. “Dr. Ayodele says she was on the phone with Dr. Ainsley when “it sounded like she was in a car crash”?” 

At Hank’s inquiry, Connor mirrored Hank’s desktop to his, displayed the most recent log of open cases in Detroit. 

“The only motor vehicle accident was at 11:03 on October 8 at the intersection of Dexter Ave and W Davidson Street.”

“Maybe it wasn’t in Detroit,” Hank mused. 

Connor shook his head. 

“Dr. Ayodele said that Dr. Ainsley had been on sabbatical for six months and was returning from Nordkapp, Norway by way of New York.” 

Connor pulled up his rough timeline of Instagram photos: in flight over the Atlantic, muddy boots standing on slippery stones, pianist fingers using soft brushes to separate clay from bone. Feeding strays on the beach in the perpetual twilight of the midnight sun. The well worn cover of a book imposed over the sunset (The Last Imaginary Place: A Human History of the Arctic World). A bonfire on the shore, darkness and firelight throwing Dr. Ainsley’s hair aflame as she smiled at some private joke. Several Instagram posts of a different kind of civilization: a beautifully decorated synagogue, Dr. Ainsley sharing an embrace with some of her peers (Drs. Lucy Morgenstern, Syeda Nassar, Brogdan Mamami). Dinner and drinks with friends she called her deirfiúracha.

/ / deirfiúracha / /

/ / From Old Irish derbṡiur, from derb (“certain”) + siur (“sister”), from Proto-Celtic *swesūr, from Proto-Indo-European *swésōr / /

“She flew from LaGuardia Airport to Detroit Municipal Wayne County Airport at 7:23. Her flight landed without trouble, and our CCTV cameras see her enter an auto taxi at 9:06.”

“Drone footage?” Hank asked.

“The evening patrol paths were altered last minute by the FAA at the request of Belle-Isle Air Traffic Control.” Connor deliberately ignored Hank’s grumble. “There was a blind zone for six minutes over a quarter mile area of Dearborn Heights.” 

Hank chewed on his inner cheek and, inspired, attacked his keyboard with fervor. “Dr. Ainsley seems like a smart girl," he said, "but sometimes smart girls get in trouble. Let’s see if she has any priors.”

Connor wrinkled his nose as he stared at a photo two years old, Dr. Ainsley straddling an unearthed structural pillar for a Phonecian temple, tanned and freckled by the Levantine sun. Her hair was more akin to spun rose gold than red, he noticed, curls kept at bay by two braids pinned to her head like a crown. The tip of her nose was sunburnt, and it made her look all the more affectionate. 

“None of the metropolitan precincts have received any reports of anyone matching her description,” Connor said, his eyes riveted to hers. 

Hank let out a tiny aha. On Connor’s screen, a single, heavily redacted page met his gaze. 

Connor felt the need to point out the obvious.

“This just has her name on it,” he said. 

“I’ve gotta file with the Department of Justice for the unredacted version," said Hank, phone jammed between shoulder and ear as he worked on seven things at once. "They’ll get back to us in, oh, seven years.”

"If you give me permission," said Connor, skin peeling back from his hand so he could touch the desktop, interface directly, "I'll be able to use CyberLife's liaisons with the Department of Justice and expedite the process."

Hank paused, looked like he was about to say no. 

The grunt Connor received was parsed by his audio systems as positive. So he did as bade, and watched the monitor briefly flicker from DCPD to CyberLife. A ST300 greeted him, even at this late hour.

"RK800," she said pleasantly. "My name is Jolene. Can you verify your serial number for identification purposes?"

"313 - 248 - 317."

The light outlining his pale white hand transitioned from white to green. Jolene provided him with a winning smile.

"Excellent! What may I assist you with this evening?"

"I was wondering if you could have one of our lawyers access an unredacted file within the Department of Justice's database?" Connor looked expectantly at Hank, who scribbled down a series of letters and numbers on a scrap of yesterday's newspaper. "Docket number 229 F. Supp. 2d 1290 (ICJ. 2036)."

"One moment please." The light at Jolene's temple rotated yellow as she parsed the information given. "I'm sorry, Connor, but this request must come from the United Nations General Assembly. That can take up to three weeks to process and review. Is that satisfactory?"

Hank shrugged, mouthed "_Of fuckin' course,_" as he waited on hold with the police in the next county over.

"That is satisfactory," said Connor. "If you can securely email the unredacted case to Lieutenant Hank Anderson at anderson.ha@dcpd.gov."

"Excellent!" Jolene smiled at Connor. "Will there be anything else this evening, Connor?"

"Stop flirting and get back to work, asshole," Hank snapped. 

"No, Jolene, that will be all," Connor replied breezily over Hank's interruption. 

"Thank you for taking the time to speak with a CyberLife legal representative this evening, Connor," said Jolene in goodbye. "Let me remind you of your meeting with Amanda tomorrow morning at eight."

Amanda. Yes. It had nearly slipped his mind. 

"Thank you, Jolene," said Connor. 

He pulled his hand from the display. Allowed the flesh to creep back over the pale plastic. Hank angrily hung up his phone; coffee and annoyance forgotten, he minimized the screen on his desktop and pulled up a cross-county information request. 

“Did you ever get a list of people matching Dr. Ainsley’s description?” said Hank as he jammed his thumb against a reader embedded in his keyboard. “Or did you try to file a request with Macomb County, and they wouldn’t let you, cos you’re a plastic asshole.”

Connor looked at Hank. The PM700 he had spoken with at the Macomb County Police Department had been apologetic, but the records request couldn’t be approved without a human lead detective authorizing it. It had been an annoying setback, but Connor knew how he could get Hank’s attention. 

It had only taken three clicks of a pen. 

“You’re correct, Lieutenant,” Connor said, pleasant. “My hospital request was also denied.”

“Yeah. They gotta file with us first. Health privacy bullshit.”

Hank typed furiously on his keyboard. Gestured to Connor. 

“Report refreshes every fifteen minutes. Check now.”

“Why the sudden interest, Lieutenant?” Connor inquired as he did as bade. 

Hank’s answer was deadpan. 

“I wanna know more about that queen. Can’t remember the TED Talk.”

Connor wanted to say _ “It was “An Ancient Tale of Sapphic Love””, _but he didn’t want to give Hank the satisfaction. 

A ping came back from the Detroit City Police Department’s open case queue. 

“Lauren Earlywine, a social worker from Mount Sinai St. Camillus, just uploaded a description of a Jane Doe they admitted in critical condition.” Connor threw Hank his jacket and his keys, ignoring his shout of, _“Wait a fuckin’ minute, asshole!”_

Connor turned on Hank, the little light on his temple turning yellow in his agitation. 

“Red hair, brown eyes, freckles, including—” Connor pulled up an image on Hank’s phone. The hot Levantine sun had stripped her down to a white shirt and tan pants, left her right arm bright and riotous with color. “—a full sleeve tattoo. We need to go.”

“They’re still operating on her, Connor,” Hank said. For a moment, he looked like he was going to turn around, return to his desk and endless queue of early twenty-first century movies. But he pulled his coat on and held his car keys loosely by the ring. “Let’s go, kid. Maybe she’ll still be alive by the time we get there.”


End file.
